Forest Stand Delineation

[NathanKay1]

I am looking for a process to delineate forest stands into like polygons, using USDA-NAIP imagery and 3DEP LiDAR data.  I am not looking for "stand typing" (I will do that using inventory data), but just looking to automate a process to lump stands into like species groups (hardwood, softwood, and combinations of each) as well as height class and crown/canopy closure.  Any info or tips on what has worked for others will be greatly appreciated!

[JonLunsford1]

Nathan, I'll admit I don't have a lot of experience with your unique problem, but since no-one has answered your question I thought I'd give it a shot.  If you want to automate the stratification of forest stands by height and various combinations of hardwood/softwood, I'd suggest approaching this task as a Machine Learning problem. The Imagery Analyst extension for ArcGIS includes Machine Learning tools for this purpose.  See this link under imagery workflows Using Deep Learning for Feature Extraction and Classification—Imagery Workflows | Documentation.